The Role of Causality in the Coordination of Two Perspectives on Distribution within a Virtual Simulation

Prodromou, Theodosia and Pratt, Dave
(2006)
The Role of Causality in the Coordination of Two Perspectives on Distribution within a Virtual Simulation.
Statistics Education Research Journal, 5 (2).
pp. 69-88.
ISSN 1570-1824.
DOI UNSPECIFIED

This paper, in a peer-reviewed electronic journal of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI), is a collaboration with a doctoral student, developing my earlier research on children’s understanding of randomness. Here the primary goal was to design a microworld which would allow us to research thinking-in-change (Noss & Hoyles, 1996) about distribution. Our premise, in line with a constructivist approach was that thinking about distribution must develop from causal meanings already established. We considered how students were able to exploit their appreciation of causal control to construct new situated meanings for the distribution of throws and success rates. This was achieved by providing them with control mechanisms for average, spread and skewness. We suggest that the concept of distribution lie in coordinating emergent data-centric and modelling perspectives for distribution. Full text not available